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Hearthstone Bennington

From HearthstoneEven on the coldest days, even in the most spacious homes... the Bennington model 8350 is sure to keep your entire home toasty warm. The largest of our cast iron woodstoves, the Bennington generates an impressive 70,000 BTUs when fully loaded, able to heat areas of up to 2,200 square feet.

With an exclusive double-wall cast iron frame and built-in rear heat shield, the Bennington's huge firebox serves as a convection chamber that allows air to circulate within, and then return, thoroughly warmed, into the room.

The Bennington's Non-catalytic combustion system creates more heat with less wood. And, with both front and side doors, loading the Bennington is simple. A large, self-cleaning window means you can relax and enjoy the flames for hours.

Beautiful stove. With that said, self cleaning glass doesn't self-clean. Baffle Board is junk. I'm on third one. I'd recommend more traditional stove w/ steel baffle (esp an adjustable baffle for lighting the fire). smolders and smokes (b/c baffle chokes off the draw). once going, it burns good and hot, and keeps a good bed of coals...so that's the plus. It keeps my 1790 sq ft house 72-76 ...

Very efficient ,clean, heat. Dropped our bill in half and we love the atmosphere. No problems with this stove at all. No regrets. We loaded it before bed and had hot coals in the morning. Added wood for the day, came home and still had coals. Its a wonderful friend.

I have had this stove for 4 years. I had the problem of smoke filling room when side door was opened AND just didn't draw or heat good. I took item 58 the baffle support out of top front. This allowed a better draw and prevented smoke from coming out side door. Now it heats like a hooker in July

I did extensive research on the Hearthstone Bennington (especially on this site) before looking to buy. Although the reviews made me very leery of my purchase, the deal on Craigslist was so good and the stove was so beautiful I had to give it a try. I paid $700 for the used stove. I have a 1300 square foot house. This stove is rated much higher than that, supposedly, but it seems to be the ...

While the stove heats evenly and burns good and complete, when you open the doors to add additional wood you either get a house full of smoke or hot coals dropping onto the floor. If you are looking for a nice looking stove for a little fire just for looks its fine. if you are looking to heat your home, keep looking. The surface for the wood is flat with no dugout for the ash and hot ...

Guarantee means nothing. Only the stone is warrantied. Stove leaks smoke around stone seams when damped. Cast iron parts warp and are NOT covered by Guarantee and expensive to replace, Read the fine print before purchasing. Looks great but poorly made for actual heating. Ashes fall out of front door when opened. Extremely disappointed. NOT recommended.

Reviewed and rated by Lightner - Hearthstone owner 6 years on August 22, 2012

Overall Performance:

Efficiency:

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One complaint after 6 years. The stone cracked all the way through on the side. Was told stone was free to replace, $500+ to install and we had to take the stove to the dealer. I will never buy another Hearthstone stove again.

I have noticed the first complaint about this stove is customer service. That complaint is being directed in the wrong place. Yes, Hearthstone the company built it. They are not the ones who sold it to you. Like a car, you go to the dealer, and not Chevrolet. It is your dealer who is failing you and shame on them for that. We have sold Hearthstones for over 20 years and I'll bet you 10 to 1 that ...

I cant get the side door to work properly. The latch and handle don't seal, and I can't regulate heat right. It gets too much air because the seals are not tight. I have had only problems since I purchased the stove and had to replace side panel, blower motor, and air assembly. Would not recommend this model....

I agree that customer support is non-existant. I had a minor problem and the place I bought it from didn't have a clue how to help. When I contacted Hearthstone they basically ignored me. I like the stove well enough though.

The stove is a great stove... if you know how to use it. This isn't your old stove from the 60's full of air leaks and poor heating performance, remember how much wood you had to feed those? The "air tight" plays a major role in proper usage.
Having proper draft is pretty much going to make it or break it for you. When the stove and chimney are cold it is hard to start due to cold air ...

I do agree with "some" of the negative reviews but I do love this stove. What I don't like about this stove - It does take a while for the stove to get going. I will crack open the ash tray during start up. I also had the side door handle latch break after the second year of use (good news is they replaced this piece for free - they should). What I like about this stove - Once we get the fire ...

Like many of you I have burned with wood for over 40 years and have never had a problem until I got my new Bennington stove. I had a hard time starting a fire and to keep it going you had to babysit the darn thing. After a few weeks I decided to go back to the dealer where I purchased it to let them know I was NOT happy. He asked me if I cleaned the stove and of coarse I had just like the manual ...

This was our first wood stove (2008) and we think it's pretty good. Our heating bill for the whole winter is $200 (for 5 months) now, which is about 30% of what it was when we just used central air. So far, so good.

Sadly Im not satisfied. The air intake does not provide a controlled amount of air. Hard to start hard to regulate. My baffle support fell down from somewhere 2 months after I bought it. 5 years later and three new baffles I found out its supposed to be on top of air intake tubes and under baffle. Fastened by a cotter key. My didn't have one because it also didn't have a hole drilled through the ...

I have the Heritage model stove & after 3 years the front door will no longer stay closed. Needs a cast iron frame kit. The customer service at Hearthstone is non existent. The design of the door latch would have been better if done by a grade schooler. I would never buy another Hearthstone Stove!

This is my first year using the Hearthstone Bennington. The stove is a beautiful piece of art. I am writing this after starting about 10 fires in it and the current fire has been going for continuously for 7 days. The outside temperature this week has dropped into the teens and not much above freezing. The stove keeps my 2000 sq.ft. house at 67 to 71 degrees. The way the ash pan is designed ...

As a former employee who dealt with finishing and packaging, i can tell by some of the reviews that some people have just received crap-lousy builds. The Bennington was one of the most difficult to build, there for alot of the time complete garbage stoves would just be pushed through and shipped out because their was no time to rework them.
For example the guys side door falling off was ...

This is absolutely one of the worst stoves that I have ever owned. Everything has already been said about its lack of performance. The costumer service has been nonexistent and I am working hard to return this stove.
Do not buy this stove.

This is only our second woodstove - so I'm no expert. But the previous reviewers are correct:-
- The air control valve is almost useless, especially
when the ash pan is getting full.
- I operate it for about 30 mins with the front doors
cracked open - otherwise it goes out.
- When you really need it to get hot, you have to
open the ash pan door.
- The optional ...

Don't believe the hipe about this stove. I've been using wood stoves of many types since the 60's and the quality of this stove is very poor - scary, in fact. I have used this stove for three months and the side load door has fallen off, the material used to fabricate it is sub-standard and it is very difficult to operate. It takes hours to get heat out of it. I've run it with the ...

The Bennington took some time to get used to. All of the comments above are correct but once you determine a pattern for fire building and stick with it, it's simple.
I now start the fire with the front doors both cracked open about 1". This provides about the same draw that the Ash Drawer door delivers without the roaring wind. The doors must remain open for a minimum of 15 minutes. If ...

We bought our Bennington used 2 years ago to put in a house we were (are) renovating. Previously we had a Vermont Castings Vigilant and then a Defiant Encore (time span of 25 years). This stove blows the doors off the VS's We throw in 3 logs around 10PM and still have a nice bed of coals at 9AM. We are toasty warm in our 1600 sq ft stone house, no storm windows yet. We spent $425 last year on ...

TWO MAJOR complaints on this stove..... As mentioned in the previous post, you can not get a real flame unless the ash pan door is open. Also the 'self cleaning' system for the front glass forces the smoke to billow into the room when you open the front doors to load it. The smole billows out because the air intake forces the air to front of the stove. I get enough heat from the stove, but ...

Don't buy this stove. It is extremely difficult to operate. We have burned wood for over 25 years and never had problems until we purchased this stove. It has a mind of its own, when you want it to burn hot it is impossible to get it going wiothout cheating and allowing a door or the ash pan to be opened allowing more air into the stove. When you shut the door the stove just smolders. It is ...